Remember to Breathe
by thexxnarrator
Summary: After long thought, Draco is left to one conclusion. He must leave Pansy so she can persue a better life without him. DracoPansy one shot, returning author.


A/N: This fic was inspired by a line I read in one of my old fics, actually

A/N: This fic was inspired by a line I read in one of my old fics, actually. Anyone remember **Spell Gone Wrong**? Well, that was it. I deleted it, since I was trying to clean out all my horrible, old stories, but this fic was born of its ashes.

DracoPansy oneshot.

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**Remember to Breathe.**

"Would you _please_ stop crying?" a blond haired young man asked, exasperated past the point of condolences. The young woman of his same age in front of him simply continued to sob, the desperation in her features matching that of her voice. Her black hair stuck to her face and lips in random, soaked locks.

A high voice choked through her sobs. "B-but, why?" she pleaded, "w-why are y-you doing this to m-me?"

Another sigh escaped the boy as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his rather skinny torso. "Pansy, get a bloody hold of yourself. Did you honestly believe that this would last forever?" By this, he meant the relationship that, over the years of schooling at Hogwarts, has blossomed into something Pansy had found, and thought to be, beautiful and sure.

"But you said you loved me!" she yelled, the words causing her to burst into another fit of sobbing as her heart wrenched inside her chest. "D-Draco, you sa-said that we _would_ be together f-forever, re-remember?"

At this comment, Draco's harsh grey eyes softened just a little bit. Yes, through all the years with Pansy, she had grown not to hit his soft spot, but to physically become it. A weakness in flesh, sympathy in blood. His soft eyes were only for her. It's true that he said he loved her, and on many accounts, he very much did. Enough to look past the pig nose, that is. There was a large – strangely so, he thought – part of him that wished to take back this moment and pretend he has said nothing, but the rest of him knew this was something that had to be done.

"I know what I said," he spoke, quieter this time, "but I also know what has to happen. Why can you not see this like I can? Why do I have to keep explaining this to you? I told you my reason-"

"Your reason is a bloody _joke_!" she exclaimed, rage beginning to take the place of the emptiness in her heart. "Y-you expect me to believe that this is for my own good? The Dark Lord is g-gone, Draco. There's nothing to protect me from anymore, so don't feed me your fake chivalry." The tears streaming down her face still had not stopped, and showed no signs of doing so, but the Slytherin Princess was starting to come out again. Pansy Parkinson was a woman of class, not a girl of no self-control. She could at least retain some dignity.

Draco's eyebrows knit together in frustration at Pansy's stubbornness. "You honestly don't get it? My god Pansy, look at you! Think back on how many times that I've done this, how many times I've turned you into a sobbing mess."

"Do I look like I care?"

"Do I sound like I don't?"

Pansy's blood began to boil. His reason wasn't good enough to constitute this sort of thing! "I don't care _how_ many times this has happened Draco! If I had a problem with it don't you think I would have _left_ you already?"

"No, I don't," he said, calling her bluff. "I know you wouldn't have, because you love me too much. Much too much. Who's to be the one to say that I won't get worse! Who's to say that I wouldn't start physically abusing you?"

"Stop it," she whispered.

"Who's to say that we wouldn't get married, and I wouldn't come home drunk and beat you for no reason!"

"Shut _up_, Draco!"

But Draco did not; he only raised his voice in the empty room of Pansy's flat. "Who's to say that we wouldn't have children, and that they wouldn't grow up in a house where their father is a crazy man and their mother would never leave him because she's delusional about their love?"

"_Shut up_ I said!" she screamed.

"Who's to say I wouldn't be the next Dark Lord and kill you all-"

A hard, smacking noise reverberated of the four walls of the flat, followed by silence. Draco's pale face shone red on one cheek, his eyes open in small shock. Pansy glared at him, her hand still open in the position it stopped after she had slapped him. Tears still rolled down her cheeks, but her voice was crystal clear in its pleading. "Stop," she said, quieter then before.

Draco turned his head to her again, a large sadness grown in his normally icy eyes. "I can't," he said, matching her quiet tone, but long ago his voice lost its ability for soft comfort. "Not until you see why this has to be the way."

Seeing her lip quiver again, Draco sighed and stepped forward, collecting the petite woman in his arms. She always fit perfectly there, her head nestled at the base of his neck, just in the right spot so she could smell his cologne and he her shampoo. Flowers, pansies mostly. "I don't care what you've done," she whispered, "I don't care what you may do. I need you, Draco. Without you I'm not sure I could remember how to breathe."

"Yes you would," he said matter-of-factly. Absentmindedly his hand reached up to stroke her long, black hair, the scent of flowers wafting up to meet his nose. It wasn't helping the situation, but still he couldn't stop. "You deserve better then me, someone who will breathe _for _you."

"Don't you see, though?" she asked, moving her head from its position in his chest to look into those piercing grey eyes, "You say I deserve better, but I could never find that!" – she reached her hand up to touch the side of his face where she had slapped – "There _is_ no better for me then you, Draco. I love you."

Despite the small string it brought, he leaned his head on her soft hand. "And I you, my flower," he said, he often called her 'his flower' because of her name, "But…"

He trailed off, looking downward. The lie he was about to tell would crush her, and he had prayed to Merlin that he wouldn't have to use it, but it looked like he would after all. He couldn't trust himself around Pansy, and he knew that eventually, he was going to hurt her. Hurt her in a way that she may never recover and the fear that produced inside of him was greater then any other emotion he felt. He stared away from her for a long moment, which seemed to drag on forever.

Pansy removed her hand from his face, staring at him with a new pleading in her eyes, and new sorrow. "Draco…" she said, and he knew what she was thinking. She would say it before he could, and he braced himself for the screams and the sobs. The raven-haired girl turned her head, staring past him to the floor, the same way Draco was looking past her.

"There's another woman," she said. It was not a question, but a statement. Draco nodded, and against his chest he felt her breathing hitch in her lungs.

A moment of silence passed before she spoke again, looking at his face. He did the same, judging her expression. Of all the questions she could have asked, the one she did surprised him. "…are you happy with her?" were the words that escaped her lips and the ones whose answer he dreaded saying the most.

He wanted to kiss her. His gut told him to say _'no, I could never be as happy with another woman then I am with you'_, but he knew what had to be done and what had to be said to do it.

"Yes," he answered quietly, no sign of his lie showing in his voice or expression, "I'm very happy with her. She's a lovely woman."

Pansy looked down at her feet, a sign that she was surely about to cry, but it was impossible to judge her reaction because a curtain of dark hair had fallen in front of her face. It felt like ten minutes had passed before she spoke again. "If you're happy with her Draco…I want you to be with her."

The blond haired boy was taken aback. What was going on? Why wasn't she fighting? Why wasn't she kicking and screaming and pleading with him to stay with her and leave this imaginary woman? He cupped her chin in one hand and forced her to look up at him. Her eyes held sadness and anguish, but were also…resigned. "Pansy…"

"Do what makes you the happiest, Draco," she said coolly, but her tears betrayed her words and the Slytherin Prince was at a crossroads. The urge to kiss away her tears, to make her feel better, was strong in his heart and mind, but he knew that now the damage was done.

There is always a point in while there is no turning back. A line in the sand, you could say. Most people would think that the hardest hurdle in a journey is the first or last, but in reality it is this line that everyone must cross that proves to be most difficult. The point that you look to and know, if you can get over the line, everything will be easier because no matter how hard you want, you know that there is no way to get back to the start. The point most feared because in life almost everything is reversible if you will it hard enough, but once the line is crossed, there is nowhere to go but forward.

"Pansy…" he began again, at a loss for words. This was not the reaction he had been expecting at all, the opposite in fact. "Pansy," he repeated, regaining his composure, "are…are you sure?"

Then she did something that broke his heart.

Through her tears and with all that pain deep within her brown eyes, she smiled at him. A smile that he had seen so many times before, the one that she reserved for when they were alone, spread on her face like always even though now it did not touch her eyes or voice.

"Draco, I want you to be happy. Ever since we've been together, ive wanted that. If I can't do that anymore, if this other woman truly makes you happy, then…be with her," she said, once again touching the place where she had slapped, gently, warmly. Her touch made him want to cry.

Despite his best efforts not to let this entire ordeal hurt him…this stung. What hurt worse then the reality that today, he was going to lose Pansy was that now, she wasn't fighting to keep him. "But-" he started, but she silenced him with a finger on his lips.

"Please, don't make this harder then it has to be Draco," she said, this time looking up at him, sure. "I want you to be happy, that's a fact, and if this woman can make you happier then me, so be it. I love you, yes, and I wish like hell I could be enough but…"

Her façade broke, and she looked down again, her body shaking with held-in sobs. He knew that it was over then, the final defeat, and what he was about to do would not change any of that. Reaching up and tipper her face to his, he gently placed a kiss on her lips. She kissed back, knowing that this was the final goodbye. When he pulled away after an all too-brief moment, Draco locked his grey eyes with Pansy's brown ones. "Think of me fondly," he whispered.

"I shall think of you what I wish, Draco Malfoy," Pansy retorted in an equally quiet voice, earning a small chuckle from the Slytherin prince. Same Pansy Parkinson. Then Draco turned and walked away from the woman who had been his companion, his lover, for years, knowing that one day she would be happier then he could ever make her.

He didn't look back.


End file.
